Wish (platform)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wish.com
Wish logo.svg
Type of businessE-commerce
Type of site
Public
Available inEnglish and other languages
FoundedJuly 4, 2010; 11 years ago (2010-07-04)
Headquarters
San Francisco
,
U.S.
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)Piotr Szulczewski
Sheng Zhang
Key peoplePiotr Szulczewski, Chairman/CEO
IndustryOnline shopping
RevenueIncrease $1.9 Billion
Employees900
ParentContextLogic Inc. (Nasdaq: WISH)
SubsidiariesWish Outlet
Wish Express
URLwww.wish.com
AdvertisingYes
RegistrationRequired
LaunchedMay 2011
Current statusActive

Wish is an American online e-commerce platform that facilitates transactions between sellers and buyers. Wish was founded in 2010 by Piotr Szulczewski (CEO) and Danny Zhang (former CTO).

Wish is operated by ContextLogic Inc. in San Francisco, United States. The platform employs browsing technologies which personalize shopping visually for each customer, rather than relying on a search bar format. It allows sellers to list their products on Wish and sell directly to consumers. Wish works with payment service providers to handle payments and does not stock the products themselves or manage returns.

History[]

Wish was started by Piotr Szulczewski, a former Google engineer, as a software company called ContextLogic. In September 2010, ContextLogic received $1.7 million in investments and involved Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman.[1]

In May 2011, Szulczewski invited college friend Danny Zhang to relaunch the company as Wish.[1] It was created as an application that allowed shoppers to create wish lists of their favorite products before matching them with merchants. They also earned revenue with a Pay-per-click model by advertising on Facebook.[2]

In 2013, Szulczewski met with Hans Tung, an investor with GGV Capital in Menlo Park, California, and noted that a large number of sales were coming from Florida, Texas and the Midwest rather than New York or California.[1] Wish became an e-commerce site after asking merchants to host their products directly on the Wish application, with Wish taking a portion of each sale.[3]

In 2017, Wish was the most downloaded e-commerce application in the United States.[4] It signed a multi-year partnership with the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers.[5][6] Wish conducted a World Cup campaign in 2018, that featured Neymar, Paul Pogba, Tim Howard, Gareth Bale, Robin van Persie, Claudio Bravo and Gianluigi Buffon.[7]

In 2018, Wish was the most-downloaded e-commerce application worldwide.[8] The company doubled its revenue to $1.9 billion.

As of 2019, Wish was the third-biggest e-commerce marketplace in the United States by sales.[1] In August 2019, ContextLogic received a Series H funding round, led by equity firm General Atlantic, taking the company's valuation to $11.2 billion.[9] JD.com is an investor in Wish.[10] ContextLogic went public via an IPO in 2020.[11]

On November 2021, the Wish e-commerce platform, including website and smartphone applications, have been delisted from Google's search results[12] in France and from Google's French app store, after French authorities claimed that many items sold on the platform do not comply with European regulations.[13][14] The same authorities also accused the platform of selling counterfeit items.[15]

Services[]

More than 1 million merchants[16][17] list their products on Wish’s platform to sell directly to consumers, eliminating distributor fees for the sellers while providing shoppers with low-priced merchandise. The bulk of merchandise available through the app comes from China and other overseas distributors.[18] Products are usually smaller items that are cheaper to ship,[10] aided by an agreement between China Post and the U.S. Postal Service that lowers costs of shipping for goods weighing less than 2 kg.[1] Wish offers express shipping in 5 days, or 6–8 days in some cases,[19] as well as standard shipping that takes 2–3 weeks, for customers who prioritize savings over speed of delivery.[8]

Wish’s "Wheel of Fortune"-style game, Blitz Buy, integrates a layer of gamification to offer consumers additional discounts on top-selling items.[20] The Wish application is available for download on iOS and Android.[4]

Criticism[]

Wish has been criticized for listing poor quality or counterfeit goods, a common concern among major e-commerce sites which feature independent sellers.[21][22][23] Customers have complained about lack of communication from sellers and quality. As a result, Szulczewski has hired Connie Chang of Facebook to organize a community of about 10,000 Wish users to expose unsatisfactory dealers in exchange for free goods and discounts.[1]

It is possible to purchase items from Wish which are not legal in the purchaser's country. In January 2020, a man from Nelson, United Kingdom, was sentenced to 11 months in prison for purchasing a stun gun via Wish.[24]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d e f Olson, Parmy (13 March 2019). "Meet The Billionaire Who Defied Amazon And Built Wish, The World's Most-Downloaded E-Commerce App". Forbes. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  2. ^ "Meet Wish, the $3 Billion App That Could Be the Next Walmart". Recode. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  3. ^ Del Ray, Jason (12 July 2013). "Mobile-Commerce App Wish Says It Knows What Its Users Want to Buy". Wall Street Journal. All Things Direct. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
  4. ^ a b "Wish was most downloaded US shopping app in 2017". Tamebay. 17 January 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  5. ^ Melton, James (22 September 2017). "Wish.com teams up with LA Lakers to put the online marketplace's logo on jerseys". Digitalcommerce360.com. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  6. ^ "L.A. Lakers Partner Wish Jumps to No. 1 in Earned Social Media Value Among NBA Jersey Patch Sponsors". Martechseries.com. 7 June 2019. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  7. ^ Ostrander, Paris (13 July 2018). "Wish Recruits Howard, Neymar For 'Time On Your Hands' Campaign". Sports Business Daily. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  8. ^ a b George-Parkin, Hilary (17 June 2019). "Wish, the super popular, ultra-cheap shopping app, explained". Vox.com. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  9. ^ "Wish Valuation Rises to More Than $11 Billion Following Series H Financing Led by General Atlantic". Bloomberg. 1 August 2019. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  10. ^ a b Loizos, Connie (1 March 2016). "The hot e-commerce app Wish has "hundreds of millions of users" (plus other fascinating stats)". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  11. ^ Farrell, Dave Sebastian and Maureen (2020-12-16). "Wish Parent ContextLogic Ends Debut Below IPO Price". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  12. ^ Lumendatabase
  13. ^ Fortune
  14. ^ Techcrunch
  15. ^ Techcrunch
  16. ^ "Step-by-Step Guide to Sell on Wish for Beginners (Products, Benefits & Comparison)". Chinabrands.com. 27 October 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  17. ^ Olson, Parmy (15 June 2018). "Wish Founder Revamps 'Culture And Operations' To Tackle Walmart, Amazon". Forbes.com. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  18. ^ "The Problem With Buying Cheap Stuff Online". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2020-05-26.
  19. ^ "Everything you need to know about Wish Express". Cedcommerce.com. 26 September 2019. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  20. ^ Stevens, Ben (14 June 2018). "Hands On with the Wish app". Retail Gazette. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  21. ^ Jul 17, Bloomberg News |; 2018 (17 June 2018). "Wish faces criticism over suspected counterfeits". Digital Commerce 360. Retrieved 5 November 2019.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  22. ^ Semuels, Alana (22 May 2018). "The Problem With Buying Cheap Stuff Online". The Atlantic. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  23. ^ Hays, Kali (4 April 2018). "Off-White Going After Fakes Being Sold on Wish.com With Lawsuit". WWD. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  24. ^ Quaynor, Aban (14 January 2020). "Man who bought £5 stun gun from wish.com to protect harassed girlfriend jailed". Lancashire Telegraph.

External links[]

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